Back catalogue: Leftfield

Review: From the moment you hit play on 'A New Threat Is Born', the first few minutes on this soundtrack to the acclaimed video game, Resident Evil 3, you could easily close your eyes and feel like you're back sat in front of a TV playing the story through. If you're unfamiliar with the franchise, let's just say it (re)wrote the book on survival horror, and a big part of this was in the scores used to accompany the on-screen tension. Less focused on specific theme tunes and tracks, over time the emphasis has increasingly fallen on building atmosphere and setting up jump scares for unassuming players. On a record, that sounds like a combination of fast moving and quickly developing instrumental movements and intimidating sound effects. Perhaps not the dinner party soundtrack you were looking for, nevertheless it makes a big impact.

Review: This is a delightful celebration of classic cartoon scores that arrives for a special Black Friday 2024 release. The collection showcases the genius of composers like Carl Stalling and Milt Franklyn, whose music defined the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies era. Orchestral brilliance and playful synchronisation bring timeless characters like Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck to life. With all new remastered tracks, the album highlights intricate arrangements and whimsical motifs that revolutionised animation scoring. Perfect for collectors and nostalgia enthusiasts alike, this one honours the artistry behind some of the most iconic and enduring cartoon soundtracks in entertainment history.

Review: Will Thomas Long's and Danielle Baquet-Long's magnificent album Celer is an alluring fusion of classic ambient and minimalism that comes steeped in a very real sense of romance. It comes with underlying themes of longing, melancholy, and nostalgia and begins with the sound of a train evoking a sense of travel. Throughout the piece, grandiose string loops alternate with various field recordings, creating contrasts between the concrete and abstract, the mundane and the exalted. Despite the epic feel of the string loops, the title, 'Engaged Touches', hints at intimacy. This powerful romanticism characterises much of Celer's work, making this another noteworthy addition to their growing repertoire.

Review: While he may well be best-known for his nostalgic, synthesiser-powered Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan project, Gordon Chapman-Fox has also put out some fine music under his given name - not least 2023's ambient opus on Castles In Space's 'Subscription Library' offshoot. On Very Quiet Music To Be Played Very Loudly, Chapman-Fox delivers four expansive ambient soundscapes. He sets the tone with the Vangelis-esque synth suspense and spacey creep of 'Components', before opting for sustained, almost neo-classical sweeps and delay-laden electronic string sounds on 'Fringe'. 'Emphasis' is immersive and quietly picturesque, while closing cut 'Singular' is dark, moody and quietly paganistic - a kind of imaginary soundtrack to a 21st century folk-horror movie.

Review: The third LP in the Chypho series from Jahbulon Records, Episodes in Oceanography, features striking cover art that helps make it another collector's gem. Chypho hails from Huntsville, Alabama and the music here does what it says not he tine - profiles an underwater world in painterly and immersive ambient tones. There are plenty of microscopic details that drift by, shimmering sun rays that piece the surface and implied rhythms that sway to and fro like the shifting sands of the ocean floor. It's a real soother for the soul but a great bit of nourishment for the mind.

Review: Chypho is on a roll with this super trio of albums on Jahbulon Records. The second album in the Episodes in Oceanography series, is another must-cop for ambient lovers and it is enhanced by striking cover art and great mastering. Hailing from Huntsville, Alabama, Chypho's music vividly explores an underwater world through immersive ambient tones and this edition captures subtle, microscopic details in deft melodies, with bright keys breaking the surface and supple rhythms swaying like ocean currents. It's a soothing journey for the soul, offering both relaxation and nourishment for the mind, and is a tranquil, yet thought-provoking place to get lost. Very nice indeed.

Review: Clouds Without Water is a project that came about after the chance meeting of two ambient experimentalists. They were both in attendance to perform at the same electronic music festival but came together over their shared love of Bristol Sound. Working over long distances and through the isolation of the pandemic, they sent tracks to each other "without plans or discussion, only wordless questions buried in the music." What resulted was this album, which evokes celestial dreams, moon-lit otherworldly landscapes and plenty of deep introspection. It is space music for spacing out to.

Review: Oliver Coates is a composer, cellist and producer who has worked with notable bands lie Radiohead and artists such as Mica Levi. He turns out some of his best work here on the score for Significant Other which is dark and dense, unsettling and absorbing. The movie follows some rather sinister happenings that blight a young couple on a trip backpacking through the forest of the Pacific Northwest. This edition comes on nice blue vinyl and with a download code as well as a double-sided printed inset. It's a real collector's edition for sure.

Review: Queens Of The Circulating Library stands as a post-industrial masterpiece alongside Time Machines and Soliloquy For Lilith and is a sensory-warping long-form drone. Created by Thighpaulsandra and John Balance, the 49-minute track flows in cyclical waves which echo the minimalism of La Monte Young. Released in 2000, it marked the beginning of a series of evolving compositions and its theatrical opening features Thighpaulsandra's opera-singer mother delivering a dreamlike, declamatory monologue, setting the stage for the trip that ensues. The music shifts like slow-motion surf and is a fine example of Coil's unique ability to embrace extremes and mutation.

Review: Four Rooms reflects a very fun time in Hollywood, or at least the annals of American cinema. Co-directed by Allison Anders, Alexandre Rockwell, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino, the story of the fictional Los Angeles-set Hotel Mon Signor, and the strange, demanding, off-putting, and straight up intimidating guests that stay there on New Year's Eve - just as Tim Roth starts his first shift on the job as bellhop - is full of energy and a carefree, playful attitude. It's the kind of movie which, if it were made today, would no doubt be rushed straight to the bottom of the New Releases section on whatever streaming service you've given in to because it would feel cheap rather than charismatic. But in 1994, catching a quintet of fresh filmmakers on the rise, at a time when positivity reigned and the silver screen still had an ounce of class, means the whole thing worked well. As for the soundtrack, we veer between Americana and a reworking of the theme from 1960s US TV series Bewitched, weird, meditative vocal drone and lounge music.

Review: Of all the seas in the world, the Indian Ocean is up there with those that invoke the greatest sense of mystery. Filling the rather big bit between East Africa, South East Asia, Australia and Oceana, it's a vast expanse of water known for deceptively dangerous paradise islands, political uncertainty, incredible natural beauty and a somewhat wild west (or east?) seafaring culture. It's a place that feels far less familiar to us here in Britain even than the Pacific, and as such a record that looks to interpret cultures and scenes from this watery region is always going to be intriguing. This is the second thematic volume in the Aquapelagos series, split LPs that focus on societies surrounded by waves, and the communities therein. Mike Cooper and Pierre Bastien's interpretation of the Indian Ocean is mesmerising, and often sounds isolated, hypnotic noises ebbing and flowing, distant calls, percussive details, 'atmos' of bird sounds, oscillations, high pitched feedback. A place that is serene and yet disturbed, often by distinctly human elements.

Review: Coral Morphologic's brilliant debut album guided us through space but with their sophomore LP, if feels much more like we're arriving at a final destinationia vibrant, water-filled world brimming with life. The rhythms are lithe and heavily atmospheric with distant pads, sci-fi motifs and sense of the unknown ever-present. It's brilliantly evocative and cinematic from front to back. To sweeten the deal even further, the album comes with a foldout poster with the fantastically dreamy and otherworldly album art by Robert Beatty

Review: Situated at the crossroads of ambient, post-natural sound design and "hi-tech sacred music", the debut long-form physical release from Milanese trio Cortex of Light presents two seamless compositions that flow without a defined beginning or end. This meditative work blurs boundaries and places you at the heart of an evolving sonic landscape. The release also marks the inaugural collaboration between A.R.X. and Krisis Publishing and unites their visions to bring this evocative project to life. Cortex of Light's artistry offers a deeply immersive experience here that is a mix of experimental textures with a profound sense of timelessness.

Review: Heart Dance Recordings is a genuinely unique proposition: a new age, ambient and spiritual music label run by, and for, women, offering up decidedly calming music from an ever-growing roster of artists. The Phoenix-based imprint's latest full-length excursion was created by a trio of musicians: flautist Sherry Finzer, percussionist and vocalist Karasvana (real name Ella Hunt) and synthesizer enthusiast-come-guitarist City of Dawn (Damian Duque). There's much to admire about The Journeying Sun, from the daybreak beauty of 'Memory of Awakening' and the immersive, enveloping bliss of 'On Seashores of Endless Worlds', with its haunting chimes and drifting vocal refrains, to wide-eyed aural wonder of 'Resident Wandering' and the simultaneously pastoral and ethereal 'Indefiniteness'.

Review: Another exceptional double album deep dive from Umor Rex mainstays Andreas Gerth and Carl Oesterhelt, respectively one-half of Driftmachine, and the artist who debuted with the landmark 11 Pieces for Synthesizer album. As ever, trying to summon adjectives to correctly describe what's here isn't easy, but let's give it a go anyway. Mysterious, dark, haunting, but also ultimately very beautiful - albeit often in a slightly chilling way - it's highly rhythmic patient stuff. A fitting title, it's hard not to picture tribalism, gatherings, premeditated practices and timeless traditions when becoming absorbed by the hypnotic contents here. It's transportive stuff, both in terms of time and place, era and style, a sense of loops and cycles being the real omnipresent thread here. Earthen ambient, strange factory floor downtempo, cinematic synths and more. The kind of record that's only possible when two people haul themselves up in a remote village with an abundance of instruments and see what happens.

Review: Certain Path is a serene, piano-driven album by collaborators zake (aka label head Zach Frizzell), From Overseas which is Kevin Sery and City of Dawn aka Damien Duque. This reflective collection of seven pieces invites deep contemplation with tender piano motifs and subtle drones creating a meditative atmosphere. Opening with 'Where Time Slows Down,' the album blends delicate melodies with layered guitar textures. Inspired by Frizzell's wife, the title track offers heartfelt emotion, while 'Avec l'aide de Vincent' honours a close mentor. Throughout, the artists employ nocturnal recording sessions, field recordings and analogue treatments to craft an introspective, evocative listening experience.